Is the art of Empire tarnished for ever?
As the Met in New York reopens its British Galleries, Alastair Sooke argues that controversial works from our past shouldn’t be hidden
When Boris Johnson outlined his vision for Britain’s future outside the EU last month, he selected the setting for his speech with great care. He wanted the location to reflect his theme and tone. His choice was a masterstroke – the Painted Hall at Greenwich, often described as Britain’s Sistine Chapel.
As his audience gathered beneath its grand ceiling decorated with a spectacular allegorical Baroque painting, the Prime Minister exhorted them to “raise [their] eyes to the heavens” and contemplate, as he put it, “this gorgeous and slightly bonkers symbolic scene”.
Behold the “well-fed nymphs and cupids”, the Prime Minister said, painted by James Thornhill in the early 18th century. Take note of the anchors, cables, rudders, sails and oars. Here was a celebration of political stability and optimism, “an explosion of global trade propelled by new maritime technology”. “Does it not speak of supreme national self-confidence?” he asked.
It was memorable rhetoric. With our national identity in flux, Johnson was suggesting that Britannia could rule the waves again. What he didn’t address, though, was that, these days, the British
Empire is an infernally hot topic – especially in the world of museums, where a massive rethink is under way about how its history should be told.
To see what I mean, we need to voyage 3,500 miles west from Greenwich to New York, where the Metropolitan Museum of Art – this year celebrating its 150th anniversary – is about to unveil 11,000 sq ft of renovated galleries devoted to British decorative arts, design and sculpture.
The reopening of the British Galleries, which cover 400 years of history bookended by the reigns of Henry VII and Victoria, marks a major moment in the ever-evolving international perception of this country. And all British politicians would do well to take note. Because at the heart of the new-look galleries – which now contain nearly 700 artefacts, from Pietro Torrigiano’s polychrome terracotta bust from c1510 of Bishop John Fisher, to a tapestry woven in 1898 boasting a pair of angels designed by Edward Burne-jones – is a narrative about the growth of the British Empire. And while, in many ways, it is a triumphant tale – celebrating qualities such as whip-smart creativity and a bold new entrepreneurial spirit – it also has its dark side, mired in exploitation and oppression. For instance, “Tea, Trade and Empire”, a new display evoking Britain’s seafaring supremacy, contains two semicircular cases filled with around 100 English teapots. What could be more British – or innocent – than a cup of tea? The variety of the vessels is astonishing, including exuberant ones in the shape of cabbages and pineapples, camels and elephants. Every taste and market is catered for, attesting to the ingenuity of British craftsmen at the very moment Thornhill was flat on his back working on his ceiling in Greenwich.
So far, so good: this is a story about artistic innovation – and profit. Yet, not everything is hunky-dory. In the same gallery, we find Josiah Wedgwood’s late 18th-century jasperware medallion depicting a kneeling, semi-naked black man in chains, which became a symbol of the transatlantic antislavery movement. Nearby, a panel of text reproduces a chilling plan of a slave ship. Thus, it argues, violence and oppression “corrupt” Britain’s success: “Much of the wealth of this period [was] built on the labour of enslaved Africans and on the appropriated resources of other countries.” It wasn’t just “new maritime technology” that propelled British trade during the 18th century. It was also slavery.
How should we think about the art of the British Empire today? For decades, museums celebrated our imperial past. Deplorable factors – slavery, say, or the brutal working conditions of the Industrial Revolution – were swept under the carpet. The old British Galleries at the Met focused instead on royalty, aristocratic patronage, the grandeur of the English country house.
Since the museum first started renovating the galleries six years ago, though, things have changed.
According to Luke Syson – who initially oversaw their redevelopment – the “absolute certainty that European art and culture represented civilisation has rightly been challenged”. At the same time, in an era of globalism, there has been new interest in the internationalism of the British Empire, and a desire to reassess its legacy. “Museums are telling completely different stories today,” explains Wolf Burchard, who took over from Syson. “People are no longer interested in connoisseurship. They are interested in international context, and the stories that objects tell.”
That may sound straightforward, but those stories can be contentious. There are different schools of thought concerning the best approach. Five years ago, when Tate Britain mounted its controversial exhibition Artist and Empire: Facing Britain’s Imperial Past, it opted for an apologetic, handwringing strategy, emphasising “a litany of exploitation, famine, cruelty and slaughter”. Today, some go even further. In a polemical new book,
The Whole Picture, art historian Alice Procter argues that the collections of Western museums are a direct result of “the inequalities created by colonialism”, and that this “ugliness” and “cruelty”, hitherto suppressed,
‘If you take down statues and remove objects, you create absences rather than presences. Then you are removing memory’
should be acknowledged. In the most extreme view, there is blood on almost every object in our museums.
Surprisingly, perhaps, Syson – now director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge – welcomes this sort of hard-line position. “I think it’s tremendous,” he tells me, “that those of us who have taken certain values for granted – I’ve had 30 years in museums – are being challenged to think again and to justify decisions that in the old days we might simply have taken for granted. Without that pressure, the debate wouldn’t be happening, and the displays – the questions we ask ourselves of works of art, of collections – would be impoverished.”
Isn’t he fearful, though, that curators may soon come under pressure to relegate such artefacts to the stores? After all, a few years ago, students campaigned for the removal of statues commemorating the British imperialist Cecil Rhodes.
“I desperately hope that will never happen,” Syson replies, “not just because I think people should see beautiful things, but because it’s extraordinarily important to remember rather than to forget. If you take down statues and remove objects from view, you create absences rather than presences. Then you are removing memory, and you can’t hope to learn lessons from the past unless those lessons are visible.” He pauses. “The British Galleries should be a place for debate as well as entertainment.” As the culture war intensifies, let’s hope that sane, sensible voices such as Syson’s will be heard.